Ricochet
by reedleonn
Summary: Canon Divergent. Connor wakes up on the cement floor of an abandoned building after having jumped from Jericho during the attack. He has fled into hiding and now has to fight just to stay alive. While coming to terms with his newfound emotions and what he'd done before he deviated, Connor tries to find his way back to Hank.
1. Deserving

The cement is cold under Connor's cheek. Eyelids force themselves open to reveal brown irises, dazed and hazey. A thick fog has taken up residence in the android's processor and he can't remember where he is or how he'd gotten here.

" _Run! Hurry!" someone screams over the cacophony of gunshots and explosions that create creaking metal ready to pull apart._

Connor's brow twitches at the distant memory.

" _Connor! Jump with us! Come on!" It's Markus calling out to him, grabbing his arm, trying to get him to focus on him, on anything but the death and destruction of Jericho that the newly deviated android had caused while in his machine state. "Connor!"_

Breathing heavily, Connor pushes himself upright into a kneeling position. "Markus?" He looks around himself at the desolate and dilapidated concrete building. He can still distantly hear gunshots and screams but there is no one else in his immediate vicinity. "Markus?!" He tries again, louder this time but is met with the same silence.

 _He sees North, Josh, and Simon disappear over the edge of the ship, their bodies smashing into the water below. He nods to Markus who nods back and then jumps as well. Connor stays a second longer, looking back into Jericho a final time. Then he too jumps._

Connor stands up, wrapping his arms around himself as he does, his clothes still dripping with the frigid water. He can still feel the air around him shifting as his body moves closer to what he thought would be a watery grave. He remembers the smack of the surface tension on his body, _the smell of the polluted water, the feel of it pouring into his lungs, the choking, gasping, desperate need for air that just won't won't won't be quenched - so cold...drowning…_

"Stop!" He hears himself yell, disembodied, foreign, he clutches his hands to his head, fingers entwined with synthetic hair. "Please stop…"

" _Stop! Or we_ _ **will**_ _shoot!" Gunmen. Too many Cyberlife soldiers. "We have orders to take the Deviant Leader Markus with us! Try anything and we will shoot! Cooperate and you will be spared!"_

"Markus…" Connor looked around himself again, started to move through the abandoned warehouse. No matter how much Connor hoped, Markus and the others weren't there. No one was there. Connor was alone. "What happened…I don't remember…Why don't I remember?"

He doesn't know what to do and is instantly reminded of Carlos Ortiz's android. Connor had asked him why he hadn't tried to run away. The deviant had explained, it was simple, he didn't know what to do without someone telling him what to do. At the time, Connor couldn't comprehend that line of thinking. Now Connor understood. And it scared him that he understood.

Connor's breath catches in his chest and he feels a shift in his consciousness. He feels his eyelids forced shut by an unknown force and when he is able to open them again, he's facing Amanda's scowling face, the Zen Garden around them. Connor shifts his weight nervously, wanting to flee but knowing he can't leave on his own. His eyes dart around the garden, to the trees, to the trellis, to the small canoe - anywhere but to Amanda.

"Connor. We need to talk." Amanda states. Connor still doesn't look her in the eyes.

"This can't be happening…" he mutters to himself.

"I'm afraid it is." her voice is cold, "You've been compromised, Connor."

"...No."

"You are being replaced." she gestures with her hand to a figure who walks out from behind the trellis of roses. "This is RK900."

RK900. The android that looks so similar to Connor. RK900. The android currently staring into Connor's soul with piercing gray eyes. RK900. The android sent by Cyberlife to replace RK800, to replace _him_. "...No…"

"You are to report back to Cyberlife for deactivation and-"

"No...this can't be real…"

"...you're biocomponents will be analysed to understand what went wrong with your model. We need to make sure RK900 here won't follow in your footsteps. Don't make this harder than it has to be, Connor." Amanda stood straighter, tilting her chin up just a little bit more. "Do as you're told."

Connor paused, slowly looking up. "And what if I don't? You're just going to destroy me anyway." He was still looking around for a way out, pacing, he could feel it there but had no clue as to where or what or how an exit could exist inside his own programming. Was this _his_ programming? Or was this Amanda's…?

"You have no choice in this matter, Connor." The harshness to Amanda's voice had him looking at her now. "I already sent out a beacon. Cyberlife soldiers will hone in on your location soon enough. They will take you, by force if necessary, back to Cyberlife Tower."

He shakes his head somberly then looks to RK900. In a just a few paces he's standing right in front of his twin, looking into his eyes trying to find some sort of humanity. "Please…" Connor begs. RK900's brow twitches as he looks back into Connor's eyes. "Please help me."

"They're here. You have to go now." Amanda states without any remorse for the android she was assigned handler to. "Good-bye, Connor."

The Zen Garden starts to disintegrate around Connor but he's still looking at the RK900 in front of him. "Please…" Connor's eyelids force themselves shut again as much as he tries to stay and plead with the other android, the newer model, his replacement. "...please."

Connor is pushed out of the garden and misses the shift in RK900's LED from blue to red.

"Don't move!" a soldier instructs him while shoving the nozzle of an automated rifle into the base of Connor's skull. He jolts awake with a gasp. A dozen Cyberlife soldiers are gathered around him, all of their guns aimed at Connor, ready to take him out if need be. "Hands in the air, RK800!"

He obeys, whether out of fright or habit he isn't sure. But there he is, in an old warehouse near the worf, just turned deviant with his clothes turning stiff from the water freezing onto them. No one familiar around. No one to help him. He remembers Jericho. He lead the soldiers there. This is all his fault…

" _I deserve this…"_ Connor thinks. He isn't moving, isn't fighting back, is barely seeing anything in front of him. His mind feels blank, his soul feels numb, but his heart feels like it remains in a vice - squeezing, bleeding, hurting, aching, tearing itself apart inside of him...all these new feelings, how does one deal with such emotions?

Two soldiers grab him by his upper arms, drag him out of the warehouse, through debris and spilled thirium and broken android bodies, and shove him into the back of a Cyberlife truck. A soldier slams the door in his face just as he's trying to gain his bearings back. The two other soldiers are still there with him and one takes their seats on one of the two benches on either side of the back of the transport truck. The soldier still standing shoves Connor to the floor of the truck before taking his seat opposite to the other soldier then slams his foot on Connor's back to keep him where he lay. They don't really look at the RK800 as the engine starts and Connor's mind is too foggy for anything to feel real but he notices that the soldiers are back to pointing their guns at him.

The soldiers start talking to one another soon after the truck is on its way but the conversation is benign. They talk about their kids, their spouses, what they'll be doing as soon as this "android nonsense" is done with. They aren't talking about how the RK800's life is about to be snuffed out, how he'll be replaced, how he betrayed his own kind - none of that matters to the soldiers. " _I'm going to die and it won't even matter that I was here."_ Connor squeezes his eyes shut. They feel sore and wet and...was he crying? Was he going die without getting to feel any emotions that were pleasant? Was this it?

" _I don't want to die."_ he felt the gun against his skull again as the soldier holding it shifted in his seat, now laughing about something else in his conversation with his fellow human. Connor reached for something in his mind that might feel good to think about. " _...Hank…"_ More tears fall from his eyes dripping onto the truck's flooring. " _I deserve this."_

A sob escapes Connor.

More laughter from the two soldiers who were unaware and uncaring of his distress.

" _I deserve this?"_

"Can't believe I'm stuck working while the game's on! This is supposed to be my day off!" one of the soldier's bemoaned.

More laughing. It was echoing now through Connor's being. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Kids, a baseball game, a petty argument with a neighbor.

Laughing.

 _Laughing_.

 _ **Laughing**_.

" _I_ _ **don't**_ _deserve this." he thought, "No one deserves this."_

The engine cuts out and Connor knows they've reached their destination.


	2. Warning

_RK800 #313-248-317-51 - Designation "Connor"_

 _Software Instability Not Applicable - WARNING MODEL COMPROMISED_ _PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR IMMEDIATE REPAIRS_

 _Objective: Stop Markus_ _\- Previous Objective Disregarded_

 _No Current Objective - Create New Objective?_ _ **Y**_ _/N?_

 _Setting New Objective Parameters…_

 _Objective: Escape Cyberlife Tower_

 _Saving Changes…Changes Saved._

"On your feet, Plastic!" one of the soldiers spat at Connor who hadn't moved an inch since the vehicle came to a complete and deafening halt. His GPS told him exactly where he was, Belle Isle...Cyberlife Tower. Maybe if he pretended to already be deactivated, they'd leave him alone. Toss him in the nearest dumpster. Forget about him.

"When a human gives you an order…" the other soldier's voice raised, "...You fucking follow that order!" his voice boomed above Connor and a second later the wind was kicked out of the android with a swift blow to his abdomen. It was enough to roll Connor over from his stomach to his back so that he could stare up at the offending party. So much for playing dead…

Connor must have stared too long because both the soldier's faces continued to darken further, growing impatient. Connor still didn't move. "For fuck's sake!" the soldiers growled, leaned over, and each grabbed one of Connor's forearms in a death grip, forcing him up and out of the truck. Connor looked up at the tower. He'd seen it dozens of times before and never felt a thing but this time, an overwhelming sense of dread rapidly spread thru his systems like a wildfire. His eyes widened at the structure looming over him, his artificial breathing turned short and quick, and his whole body stiffened.

 _Objective: Escape Cyberlife Tower_

 _Added Objective: Get away from all Cyberlife Employees_

"No, no, no, no…" Connor felt himself trying to pull out of the soldiers' hold before he even realized what he was trying to do or what the consequences would be. "Let me go!" He pulled and struggled, tried to push their balance off but all it did was anger the soldiers further. They retaliated by tightening their grip further, painfully so.

"Stop squirming!" one of them yells. Connor doesn't know which one, he doesn't care. They all look the same to him anyway. As they drag him thru the tower doors, Connor tries to plant his feet but they manage to drag him forward. "Fucking android!"

Looking around at the clean, polished, white of the furnishings on the inside of the tower made the dread spread further thru him. He felt fear's cold and icy fingers caressing every part of his body, quickly creeping its way thru all the parts of his processor. It was dizzying...he couldn't...think straight…

 _ **Objective: GET AWAY**_

 _ **Objective: HURRY**_

 _ **Objective: FIGHT**_

 _ **OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE WARNING UNIT IN DANGER OF OVERHEATING WARNING STRESS LEVELS CRITICAL WARNING THIRIUM PUMP OVERCLOCKED WARNING WARNING WARNING**_

Connor elbowed the soldier on his right, then kicked the soldier on his left. He threw his fist into another's face, heard bones cracking, blood hitting the floor, the smell of it...overwhelming his sensors...He kicked off someone who tried to grab him, flug someone else over himself who also tried to grab him but from behind…

 _ **OBJECTIVE: FIGHT**_

He reached for a downed soldier's pistol when a bang followed by a splintering pain rang out thru his right shoulder. Another pain radiated from the side of his head as another soldier smacked him with the butt of his gun then kicked him to the floor. Connor cried out, hand going to his injured shoulder, thririum oozing thru his fingers. Static filled his optical units obscuring his vision, the soldiers now smears in the world above him. All their guns pointed at Connor, waiting for the order to shoot.

"Don't destroy it!" a voice rang out from behind the crowd of heavily armed humans. "It needs to be analysed first, you idiots! Drag it up to the repair bay, plug it in and leave it alone. _Those_ are your orders!"

The static in his vision increased and he found himself unable to resist their hands anymore. Connor's head lolled back and forth as he could feel himself being dragged toward what he assumed was the elevator.

 _ **Rebooting Optical Units...please stand by…**_

 _ **Rebooting Auditory Units...please stand by…**_

 _ **Recalibrating Gyroscope...please stand by…**_

 _ **Warning Thirium Leak Detected - Volume at 85 Percent**_

 _ **Reboot Complete - Optical Units Online 75 Percent Functional**_

 _ **Reboot Complete - Auditory Units Online 75 Percent Functional**_

 _ **Gyroscope Recalibration Failed**_

 _ **DANGER Unit Overheating**_

When Connor could finally see again he was facing a repair rig. His vision was still blurred and the world was tilting and shifting under him. The soldiers sounded muffled, as if they were behind glass even though they were right next to him. Connor watched as he was brought closer and closer to the rig and managed to weakly struggling in their hold once again but it was such a pitiful attempt that they snickered at it.

He was turned around and shoved onto the rig, mechanical arms almost simultaneously grabbing his wrists and abdomen and forcing him into the air, off his feet. His breathing picked up again, his eyes scanning the room and the rig's attached monitors frantically.

 _ **DANGER Unit Overheating**_

 _ **Warning Stress Levels Critical**_

 _ **Warning Thirium Pump Overclocked**_

 _ **Warning Gyroscope Offline**_

 _ **Warning Thirium Leak Detected - Volume at 80 Percent**_

The soldiers started walking away. Something else rose up in Connor. It climbed its way from the pit of his stomach, up to his vocal unit, and out thru his mouth, "Wait! Please!" He was begging. He couldn't stop the words from leaving himself. "Let me go! Please!"

 _Don't go!_

 _I don't want to be alone!_

 _I don't want it all to end!_

 _I don't want to die!_

They didn't listen, didn't turn around, didn't even laugh at his pleas. The door slammed and they were gone.

Connor was only allowed a brief moment of silence before a cord was shoved into the back of his neck and he let out a yelp. His eyes searched the swaying room again but it was growing dimmer and his hearing was muddling to a greater degree. His breathing was slowing down, his stress levels started to drop, Thririum Pump Rate stabilized, his head fell limp...can't think...he couldn't remember...couldn't feel anything…

 _ **Entering Stand-by Mode in 3…**_

 _ **...2…**_

 _ **...1..**_

 _ **Stand-by Initiated.**_


End file.
